Deny Thy Father

Chapter 4: Not Quiet a Stranger, Not Yet a Friend

"Lay Down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end

Sleep now
Dream-of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away.

Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

What can you see?
On the horizon.
Why do the white gulls call?

Across the sea
A pale moon rises.
The ships have come
To carry you home.

And all will turn to silver glass.
A light on the water
All souls pass.

Hope fades
Into the world of night.
Through shadows falling,
Out of memory and time.

Don't say
We have come now to the end.
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again.

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

What can you see?
On the horizon.
Why do the white gulls call?

Across the sea
A pale moon rises.
The ships have come
To carry you home.

And all will turn to silver glass.
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the west."

Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall stood watching as Narcissa sang to her still sleeping son. All four of them were in 12 Grimmauld Place, the home that Narcissa had grown up in.

"Albus," Minerva said, wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye, "why?"

He smiled sadly, watching, as Narcissa serenaded her son, "Isn't it obvious? We may have thought that it was over, that Narcissa and Draco were lost to us... But they're not." He patted Minerva on her shoulder, "Next time you talk to Narcissa, look into her eyes."

XoX

Draco awoke to the shining in his eyes. Crying out, he threw an arm over them for protection and heard a giggle come from beside his bed.

"Draco, darling, you have no idea how foolish you look."

"Mother?"

"Yes?"

"Where am I? My bedroom doesn't have any windows."

"You're in my childhood home, Draco. I had to get you away from Lucius and his foul schemes. I told Dumbledore."

"But, what will we do? We have no money now."

Narcissa smiled at her son's petty fears, one would think that he'd be worried about Voldemort finding them and killing them, or his friends abandoning him, but the first thing that came to mind was money. "I have my private vault to keep us alive, darling. My dear cousin Sirius also left to me one of his more obscure estates in his will. I promise I'll show you it one day, it's in America."

"America?"

"Yes, by the capital of the wizarding community there, Salem."

Draco smiled weakly, thinking of the stories he'd heard from his peers of American witches and wizards. They'd sold their knowledge to muggles in books and opened clinics for hopeful muggles to try their luck at learning the Arcane arts.

Narcissa patted her son's hand and motioned for him to get out of bed. "You need to get up and talk to Dumbledore. I haven't told him of your heritage, so let's keep that a secret. Draco..." she paused for a moment, uncertain what her son's reaction would be to what she had to say, "we need to charm your eye grey."

"What? Why?!"

"Darling, your eye is a dead give away. I won't harm it in any way, I promise. As soon as you're back from talking to Dumbledore you can take off the charm."

"I..." Draco touched his cheek softly and remembered the dream and the tattoo on his shoulder. "Alright, but I have something to talk to you about afterwards."

Narcissa nodded and waved her wand, charming Draco's green eye to grey.

XoX

Draco Malfoy sat before Albus Dumbledore for the first time in his relatively short life without the fear of getting into trouble. Dumbledore's bright blue eyes bore into him and Draco tried not to look down at his feet like a scared first year.

"So Draco," Dumbledore said amiably, "how are you doing?"

Draco shrugged.

"I see. And you mother?"

He shrugged again.

Dumbledore smiled and sighed. "Draco," he said eventually, "you needn't be afraid. We promise to protect you and your mother. I believe she's forming plans to relocate to America, yes?"

Draco nodded. "Yeah, her cousin or something left her a property in Salem when he died."

"Ah, Sirius?"

"Yeah."

They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while more.

"Draco, I need you to tell me why you renounced the Dark Mark." Dumbledore deadpanned.

Draco thought furiously for a moment, he obviously couldn't tell Dumbledore the truth - that he wouldn't and couldn't pledge his loyalty to anyone but his mate - so he had to lie. "I... I..." damn he was bad at this, he usually just said the first thing that came to his mind - brain to mouth with no filter.

"Just be honest Draco, it can't hurt."

Draco almost laughed, remembering his mother's words and silent warnings. Ah well, he thought almost bitterly, they say the best lies hold a grain of truth.

"I won't bow down to anyone."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, eyes twinkling. He knew that Draco wasn't telling him the whole truth, but he could hear the truth in his answer.

"I see," he said, smiling at the boy, "well I'm glad you and your mother pulled yourselves out of the sticky situation you were in."

Draco looked somewhat sad as he nodded in agreement, "Me too."

XoX

Harry awoke, bathed in cold sweat and panting. The disturbing dream he'd had earlier that night had been followed by an extremely erotic dream of a boy whose face he couldn't see.

That in itself wasn't disturbing to him, he knew that healthy teenage boys (who also happened to be somewhat gay) had dreams like that all the time - hell, it wasn't the first he'd ever had - but... It was different somehow. The boy whose face he couldn't see had stroked his skin with a reverence that muggles usually reserved for their deities and had whispered sweet nothings in his ear. Well, if you can call 'Oh Gods! I love you so much Harry!' a 'sweet nothing'.

Usually, his dream lovers had very obvious identities (there was one point when he'd had very vivid dreams of Oliver Wood in numerous positions over and under him) and only groaned or moaned. Never had his dreams turned to romance.

And it had felt so good to hear those things, even in a dream. Even awake now he could feel those phantom caresses on his oversensitive skin, the warmth of the boy's breath against his ear and the soft feel of their skins touching.

Not to mention the amazing sex he'd been participating in, although he'd woken up right before orgasm as usual - damn his luck.

Running a hand through already wild black hair, he smiled to himself and tried to put a face on the other boy's body. He knew the other boy had to be real, Harry had to have met him before - he was too familiar to be a stranger.

And, sitting soaked in sweat with a throbbing erection he'd have to attend to soon, Harry made a pact with himself. He was going to find the other boy if it was the last thing he did, and when he found him he'd have found his soul mate.

Forever was a long time, but forever with his dream lover seemed like no time at all.

Harry chuckled to himself as he got up to go the bathroom of the Burrow; it'd been one hell of a good dream.

XoX

Later that same day, Harry made up with Hermione and Ron. After he apologized for being so rude they'd made to hug him before remembering his 'condition' and stopping sheepishly.

"Hey Herm," Harry said casually as the three sat in the backyard of the Burrow, Ron and Hermione draped around each other while Harry sat slightly off to the side while guards eyed them warily outside of hearing distance, "what do you know about messages in dreams?"

She eyed him shrewdly. "When did these dreams start and what do they entail?"

Harry, rapidly deciding that the first dreams was probably the best to share first, explained. "...And then I turned around and there was a guy standing in the shadows with eyes the same as mine."

"Do you mean the same green or one gray and one green?"

"Gray and green."

Hermione pursed her lips. "I think we should tell Dumbledore. He seems like he needs all the information we can possibly give him at this point."

Harry stifled a laugh at Hermione's slightly disdainful tone and nodded. "I'm going to, but what can dreams like this mean? Or do you not know?"

As he knew it would, Harry's insinuation that Hermione might not know something spurred her into action. "I'll have you know that I read three books on dream interpretation before the whole Trelawny fiasco!"

"Really?"

"But of course. A dream like this could be and mean many things. We have to take into account that your new eyes and the possibility that one of them could belong to someone else as a possible reason for this dream and it could be that you're connected somehow in sleep with this other person." Harry's heart skipped a beat, thinking of his second dream.

"The long corridor could symbolize a long road ahead, a lack of hope, a feeling of being trapped with no escape routes. The starkness could mean many things; it could mean that you're a blank canvas that has yet to be painted on - metaphorically speaking of course, that you feel empty, that you're in need of something. The pine-scent... well, that's a little harder isn't it? It could mean that you have a memory that involves something bad and the scent of pine or vice versa. It could mean that which you seek can be found in the boy who you met after you smelt it, as you were searching for freedom. At the time, the scent may have symbolized that for you in the dream. The ceiling being opened to the night sky could mean that the restrictions you're under aren't as binding as they seem, or that you need to look up and that there's hope.

"The boy is what really fascinates me; instead of acting like a typical person in a dream, he reacts like a normal - if somewhat apathetic - person would. I think he may represent an ideal. He may have your eyes because you were looking want who you want to be."

Harry and Ron gapped at Hermione as she finished her speech.

"Bloody hell, I've taken Divination since Third-year and I don't know all that!" Ron exclaimed after a moment or so of silence.

Harry and Hermione burst out laughing and were shortly followed by Ron.

As the three friends calmed down and sprawled out on the soft grass that covered Ron's backyard, Harry gazed up at the clouds and though about what Hermione had told him.

He knew that she had to be right about some of the things, she was Hermione. But he knew she wasn't right about him being the boy. The boy was someone else, not quite a stranger but not quite a friend.

XoX

Draco got out of his fairly uneventful meeting with Dumbledore a little while after noon and ended up having lunch with his mother in the room he'd woken up in.

"Mom," he said, "can we talk now? Is it safe?"

Narcissa smiled gently and nodded, chewing happily on a mouthful of roast beef sandwich.

Draco took a deep breath and started to explain the dream to his mother. "I was standing in a forest, it was filled with pine trees and I could barely make out the night sky through their branches. I started walking because... I don't know... I felt like I needed to. I reached a door and when I opened it there was a long, white corridor stretching as far as I could see. I walked in and the door swung shut behind me, sending a blast of wind hurdling down the corridor. I heard some footsteps and then someone called out. The voice... It was beautiful - velvet smooth and somehow familiar. I walked up to the boy who called out and said 'hi'. He turned around and his eyes matched mine, one gray and one green. I... Then I woke up before I could make out his features."

Narcissa smiled at her son and silently took the charm off of his eye, inwardly cursing her forgetfulness. "I think you shared that dream with your mate, Draco."

"Really?" he asked, mismatched eyes bright with hope, "You think so? He was wonderful... Perfect."

"Oh you definitely dreamed with your mate, there's no way it could be anything else," Narcissa said, surveying the blissful expression on his face.

He smiled lopsidedly. "Am I that obvious?"

"Oui."

"Pas mal, I can't seem to bring myself to care."

Narcissa laughed and ruffled her son's perfect hair, causing him to scowl good-naturedly.

XoX

Albus Dumbledore was no fool.

No matter how the Lemon Drops, socks, and twinkly eyes made him look, Albus Dumbledore was a very wise - and some might even say shrewd - man.

He was also a bit of a romantic.

When Narcissa had come to him and begged him to save her son he'd done so because he remembered the young girl she had been. Full of life and deeply in love with a 'half-blood', Narcissa Black had been one of the nicest women he knew. When she was forced to marry Lucius Malfoy he'd been shocked and outraged - any fool could see that Narcissa Black and Rowan Chamberlain were meant to be together.

When he'd talked to Narcissa's son he'd been thrown off momentarily by the enchantment covering one of his eyes before he realized it was very similar to the one that Narcissa wore, only Narcissa wore it over her whole body.

He'd seen through Narcissa's right away and had been pleased with the laugh lines he found around her eyes, and the happiness housed within them. When he looked through Draco's he'd nearly choked on his Lemon Drop.

Draco Malfoy had one green eye and one gray eye.

Harry Potter had one gray eye and one green eye.

It had to be connected somehow; there was no way it couldn't be.

Research had been called for and what he found made him smile. Rowan Chamberlain had been a full-blooded Veela, and judging what he'd seen this afternoon Draco Malfoy was a half-blooded one.

So, that meant Harry Potter was Draco's soul mate.

For some reason the romantic in Dumbledore found the whole thing endlessly enchanting.

Smiling down at the family register he held in his hand, and feeling more then a bit giddy, Dumbledore quoted:

"Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
It its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence;
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And Tomorrow is only a Vision;
But Today well live makes every
Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, and every
Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation to the Dawn."

XoX

Harry was sitting in the Weasley's kitchen once again when Dumbledore flooed into their fireplace.

Dusting off his robes and beard, Dumbledore smiled at Harry. "Ah," he said, "just the boy I was looking for. Although you're not a boy anymore, are you?"

Harry smiled at Dumbledore, who looked ridiculous with a large patch of soot on the tip on his nose. "I guess I'm not, sir. Why did you want to talk to me?"

"I need you to come to Grimmauld Place for a while, can you handle that?"

Harry gulped around the large lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat and managed to nod. "I... I can."

"Good. Don't worry Harry; you'll be in excellent hands there. Remus is staying there still and... Well, let's say that some of Sirius' better relatives have had to move in temporarily."

"Better relatives? I thought he didn't have any? Well, except for Tonks and her mum."

Dumbledore laughed. "Don't worry my boy, they're harmless. In fact, you might come to... like them, given time."

Harry shrugged, slightly confused by the calculating gleam in Dumbledore's eyes.

Just then, Hermione and Ron came into the kitchen.

"Hello Headmaster," Hermione said promptly, "has Harry told you about his dream yet?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Not yet, why don't you fill me in?"

Hermione and Harry took turns telling the tale, Harry interrupting every once and awhile when he thought Hermione was putting the wrong emphasis on a situation.

When they finished Dumbledore's eyes were so bright and so twinkly that they looked luminescent in his head. "I see," his voice was grave despite the obvious emotion in his eyes, "that tells me a lot."

Hermione made a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat, remembering the earlier incident with Dumbledore and his supposed 'dark curse'.

Dumbledore shot her an amused glance before turning back to Harry. "I'm right that you need to come to Grimmauld Place for a bit," he said, "please pack your things."

Harry nodded and bounded up the stairs, leaving a gapping Ron and miffed Hermione staring at Dumbledore in the kitchen.

"Does Harry really need to leave?" Ron whined, "Ginny just got back from her friend's place and she hasn't gotten a chance to even speak to him yet."

Dumbledore nodded. "I'm afraid so, it's a matter of grave importance."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest just as the air was spilt by an Earth-shattering scream.

"Harry!" they all cried, running for the stairs.

XoX

Ginny had just gotten back from Luna's when she almost crashed into Harry as he run up the stairs.

Smiling at him she said, "Watch out Harry, you could have run me over!"

He smiled back at her and Ginny couldn't help but think about how handsome he'd become over the years. His hair was enticingly messy and his eyes sparkled like emeralds... well one of them did anyway, but she'd bee told about the whole eye thing and it was still nice looking. His body was toned from Quidditch and physical labor, while his skin shone with a golden tan. Yum.

"Hey Gin, when did you get back?"

"Oh, just now... Harry, could I talk to you for a moment?"

Harry shrugged and followed Ginny into her room.

Ginny smiled to herself and motioned for Harry to sit on her bed. She sat down beside him, almost touching him and began to talk. "You know Harry," she said, "I've liked you for an awfully long time. Even when I was dating other boys I still liked you. So... Umm..." Deciding that words weren't good enough she leant forwards and pressed her lips to Harry's forcefully. It was wonder, pure bliss - even if he wasn't kissing her back.

Harry however had a different view on the kiss. It was horrid and absolutely wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

And then a funny feeling filled his chest and it began to hurt. It hurt more then when Ron and his parents had touched him, more then when Ron had called him 'mate' - his heart felt like it was literally breaking.

He screamed as loud as he could, falling away from Ginny and onto the carpet. He only screamed louder as Ginny put an arm around him to try and help him off his knees.

Oh God, Harry thought, oh please... Let it stop...

He blacked out, the pain finally becoming too much for him.

XoX

Draco had been happily eating with his mother when he felt something from his mate. Putting down his sandwich and concentrating Draco heard words drifting through the air, as if blown by the wind.

"... liked you for an awfully long time... even when... other boys... still liked you..."

His heart clenched as he realized someone was confessing to his mate. Anger began to bubble in his chest.

Then the slut kissed him. Kissed his mate.

And his mate didn't push her away right away.

His mate sat there and let himself be kissed.

Oh God... Heart clenching, Draco dropped onto his knees on the floor. Tears poured out of his eyes and he began to sob. His mate was kissing someone else; his mate didn't want him.

Oh God.

His chest hurt so much and it felt like someone had thrust a knife into his heart and twisted.

XoX

As soon as Dumbledore saw Ginny with her arm around an unconscious and weeping Harry Potter he pushed her off him.

"He can't be touched now," he explained hurriedly, "it will just make it worse."

Ginny, who was extremely pale, nodded and backed off as Dumbledore levitated Harry to her bed and lay him down there.

Carefully making sure the boy would be all right, he sighed. His theory had just been verified and there was no doubt in his mind that Harry Potter was Draco Malfoy's intended, but if Harry was this bad then he didn't want to think about the shape Draco would be in because of whatever Ginny had done.